The Dead Butterfly
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The mystery that Chandu had unveiled in the morning was
propelling me towards the door. But the Sun was burning hot and mummy had been accusing us and our notoriety for the June heat. Just the previous day they were discussing
something pertaining to Radha Aunty, who usually wore scarlet lipsticks
on her dark face, but had suddenly started to grow white on hands and feet. Chandu
and I were unanimous that she had got a cosmetic tip from Roosi (Russian)
Bhabhi and in a few days she will be as white as her daughter in law. But the gossips
insinuated something I could not fathom except Dadi (Grandma)
insisting "paap (sins) of children have to be borne by their
innocent parents." Mummy was looking outside the window and I bet she was
worried at the fact that I was committing some paap. She repeatedly avowed that the
rate at which I was going, I would certainly end up becoming a Gunda (Rogue).
But papa had reflected that I will be an engineer and I spent that night reciting
e-n-g-i-n double-e-r- engineer. My own ideas of being-what were confused
varying from signboard painter, to gardener through carpenter.
But the desire was desperate. Sneaking under mummy's
thoughtful eyes, I stood on the gate only for a moment to declare in a loud
vent
“Mummy!! Gonna play.”
I could hear the yells of "You'll burn!!","Don’t
run!!", "Stop!" (which in local dialect sounds something like "Etek dhoopa mein jal na jaibe","Ruk na,"Waise na nu bhaag") and what not as if I were a nursery kiddo. I was
then in Montessori one and Chandu said 'we were grown-ups now’.
The wild Mowgli inspired call was heard by a frocked figure
peeking through the window on my back. Sony lived just on the other side
of the boundary with her mother. She always made small greetings for her father
and stored them in a small box. She read in the government school where her
mummy taught. I wished my mummy taught in my school which could have certainly
reduced the cut marks on my palm. Though Sony was very cheerful
otherwise but I can remember she bitterly wept when I showed her the bicycle
that Papa brought me. I asked her to get similar one from her daddy and she
choked to tears. Girls look silly when they weep.
On my holler, Chandu jumped from inside as if he had
been waiting to pounce out. Together we jumped into Sony's sludgy
verandah and our slam-bang was enough to tempt another expectant. Her eyes mischievously
hopeful, Sony prowled out not to disturb her sleeping mummy and
whispered imploringly
"Take me witzya. I can’t play at home. Puhleese"
Chandu’s smile withered. I had expected it as he disapproved her presence and
reiterated that we were grown up boys and it was shameful to play with a girl. Initially
I had a speck of doubt but his knowledge was far superior and eventually I
accepted it as a fact. I was telling her to go but could see that she would cry.
I hastily pressed
"Ohkay let’s take her together. Just for today."
Chandu looked astray and walked towards the barrier that separated us from our
heaven: Miscott’s garden.
We did not know how heaven was supposed to be then, but this
place had all that we needed. The pavements were broken; the fountain in the middle had a thicket of moss floating over stagnant rain water; the bathrooms in one
corner had been long deserted. There was a small ruin which appeared to be a
room or watch-post of some sort. Shrubs occupied most of
once-might-have-been-lawns. Clusters of marigolds and wild roses were strewn
with tall grasses and myriad weeds. Overall it was a long bereft topiary where
only likes of us treaded for adventures. Occasionally some grass snakes could
be seen which were more fun than fear for all but for Sony who shrieked
at their mere sight. But if this horror was clamped with her we all were
petrified by a common dread: the lonesome ochre-black haunted villa in the west
corner.
Chandu had heard several wails and ghostly noises out of it and when it seemed
every other child in the colony had heard similar things; I to create a niche
in metaphysical echelon carved out a story that I had seen a white sari clad bhootni
(she-ghost) holding a candle moving towards the fountain at 12
o’clock night. The story made me an instant cameo and people thought me awfully
lucky to see such a thing. Only Sony knew the truth and she was a trustworthy
confidant.
But today Chandu had special designs. In morning he
had narrated me the incidence of the previous night when he woke up to pee in
late hours but frightened enough to go to dark bathroom, went to balcony and poured
out; he saw the first floor of the
haunted-villa flooded with a tube-light's aura. When I suggested it may be the
same bhootni; he reacted with logic that ghosts used candles not tube-light
and the humble me went mum. He was adamant that they were some bandits or
smugglers meeting there and if we could bust their hideout we would be like the
Batman or Super Commando Dhruv and we will have a comics of our own.
Sony resented all our attempts to do such things and started howling that she
would run and tell everything to my mummy. Before I could even say a word, Chandu
burst out saying
"I told ya. Thiz gals are cowards. Leave her alone to
rot with her dolls. We are brave enough to go."
Sony hurt at being called a coward took up the challenge and half-heartedly
agreed saying “Okay then I will show you that I aint no coward.”
I was left clueless as I was banking on her for an excuse.
Trembling we crossed the blind shrubs and slippery pavements
into a new world and discovered that the garden was in backyard of the villa. Chandu
stealthily opened a small gate and ohh! We could locate the difference. Yes; someone
had certainly been around there as everything had a cleaner air about it.
Under rugged, webbed porch and in the 4 o’clock sun we could see a beautiful
lawn in front of us. Although it was shabbily trimmed and was covered with Peepal
leaves which made eerie sound under our feet; still it had blossoms of dahlias,
marigolds, bela, harsingar to name a few. While I and Sony
were dumbstruck by wildness blended with glory, Chandu was still looking
for his villains. Suddenly Sony shrieked
“Milan. Look
there.”
Horrified we looked in the direction of her finger and were
left gasping to find several butterflies, red and yellow all over, so big that
one of it covered the whole dahlia it sat over. Chandu jumped with
excitement. "I will catch and keep it in a bottle as a proof of
'we-came-here'.”
It gave us a game. Crushing the Peepal leaves, jumping
the shrubs, rambling through the lawn we followed the flying beauties. But they
would not be caught. It was a long time before the ultimate happened. The sun
was burning red down into the horizon over the villa and still without any
success I was following one of them. Slightly crouching, I stealthily pounced
upon a beautiful butterfly. Ecstatic I squalled “Chandu, I got
one..." and hurried towards them...
Their eyes with anticipation saw me landing unconsciously on
a soggy segment where I tumbled down; the butterfly still in my hand. Bang!!!Hurt
but still jovial; I got up but with a pain in my knee and a pulp in my claws. I
understood nothing and opened my fist to them. It had the broken wings of the
glossy beauty and the pulp of a caterpillar that owned those wings. Chandu
took to brooding, Sony burst to tears and sinister-me tried to console her.
I understood that I had committed a heinous sin and Dadi’s
verdict was hovering in my head "The paap of children have to be
borne by their innocent parents". Instantly a lot of things flashed
through my mind. They being sick, old, angry, papa failing in office exams, mummy
burning her hand on stove and many more and I joined Sony in her tears.
Chandu suddenly added another aspect to the drama.
"The ghost of
butterfly will never let us be happy. I know it will avenge."
Horror coagulated my
tears while flooded Sony’s. We sought after Chandu for respite.
“Then what are we to do?”
Chandu after thinking for a while came out with a solution. "In a movie I
saw they killed the ghost by burying its body in ground and putting a stone
over it. And they did like this.” He said crossing his heart thrice.
The Sun had already gone down and it was quite dark all
around. I got a twig, removed the leaves and started digging. Chandu
went to look for a fitting tombstone. When we were done Sony placed the
poor thing into its small grave, her eyes still moist and I hastily covered it
with soil. Chandu placed the orb-stone and we stood abreast; our eyes
closed, heads down, hands on the hearts; praying for reprieve.
Our condolence lull was broken by a spine chilling cough
followed by some light footsteps. Dumbstruck I opened my eyes to find a bleak
candle light around me. In reflex I turned towards the source and was leaping
unconsciously away from the shadow that sprawled over the porch peeping into
us. I recognized that Sony and Chandu had shared the same fate
only when I had reached her verandah and my heartbeats had restored. For a week
we couldn’t sleep and the pensive cough haunted us for years to come.
An era has passed by. I am an engineer. Chandu had
taken to drugs and is in a rehabilitation centre. Sony’s father never
came back but she has grown up into a damsel and her face has a tinge of shame
in front of me. Dadi is paralyzed and scolds me no more. I know that the
shadow that day was of Ramzani chacha-the bicycle mechanic who
happened to be the caretaker of that villa. The tombstone would have been long
ago displaced and there stands a Gulmohar (Royal Poinciana) tree; which
with its red and yellow flowers appears as if lots of that butterfly are
sitting upon it, silently whispering the tale of three immaculate kids. It
stands as a living mausoleum of the dead butterfly and the innocence that died
long ago...
Picture Credit :http://teluguone.com/vinodam/wp-content/gallery/oil-paintings-of-lovely-childrens/painting_children_childhood36.jpg
THAT IS WHY I.M.MORAL
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| picture credits: temptation and Fall of Adam , by Michael Angelo |
Our brain is a learning based
system. It assimilates inputs from situations, incidences, lessons and
conversations around, generates a pattern output, analyses the output,
implements it and generates feedbacks to itself based on results. ‘We’ are ‘what we are’ not because it’s on our socio-economic profile or
because of the way ‘we’ are perceived
by others or even because we think something about us. Our being is reflected mostly through our
reactions, reflex actions and our general outlook towards things. They are so
because we have been gradually conditioned over our lives and over generations
to respond
to any stimulus in the most rational (read
comfortable) way. This behavioral trend is persistent. Before
even our thought process comes into action, the brain generates responses based
on knowledge from previous such instances.
These are the foundations of our rationality and civilization. These may
be attributed for the higher human survival rate as considered to other species
on the planet. For example we do not play with fire, we take precautionary
measures, we know not to intake certain things without even much thought and
that is why we are less endangered. Through this continuous mental evolution we
define our limits, our standards and our morals. Since the biggest input set is
society, our morals are the thoughts and habits that result into most
comfortable social life. Actually we are
gradually trained not to resist but persist and evade. Similar arguments hold true
for professional mannerisms, marital vows and other predefined rules that
constitutes our basic nature.
This evolutionary conditioning is
designed on nature’s basic axiom of “survival
of the fittest”. However on a shorter scale (of a human being’s life) it
can be divided into two parts:
“Escape
from bigger problems”
“Practice
facing smaller problems”.
This is how we cultivate different capabilities within ourselves apart
from those which have come through genes. Some of them are reflexes
(like phobias), conscience (judgments on
nature of action) and orientations
(political, social or sexual). With these major influences some by-products
which are non-generic and extremely relative like intuition
(predicting next on basis of the last), presumption
(opinionated outlook towards people or things) and calibration
(having parameters set for everything) are also introduced into a person. This
whole continuously evolving package (like a neural network system) is what we
call morals.
This implies that though morals
are supposedly personal, they have such an encompassing intersection set that
they become a part of the society. And they change with social changes. A
famous example is homosexuality.
Although it is a personal orientation, still society debates about it and
people have opinions about it. In most of the cases, almost without any
first-hand experience people have things for it or against it and they
attribute it to their moral values. Initially it was just an abnormality,
then it was a sin and then it was a crime. Now it is a subject of debate. Soon
one opinion will overpower another and that will become the moral of society
and most of the individuals in it.
The hostile part of these morals
is their inertia and the resistance attached to it. These are so much a part of
us in our habits, actions and doctrines that we resist every possible change.
And the precarious part is that their epicenter is almost always away from
their point of emergence. Morals of a
terrorist are direct outcome of the civil war he is a child of. The moral
margins between Hindus and Muslims in India can be traced back to Islamic
Conquerors and are now being fed by Islamic militia, Hindu right wing and
recurrent riots in last 60 years. Another illustrative example is the dietary
habit which is majorly influenced by morals. Assuming that initially everyone
ate everything edible, these habits have emerged based on two things- religion
and availability of food.
Vegetarians despise all kind of meat eaters.
Hindus hate Muslims for eating beef.
Muslims abhor Christians as they
eat pork.
Western world mock South East Asians as they eat
dog meat.
Everyone calls cannibals uncivilized.
What can be
picked from this illustration? Our food habits are
not only socially constructed but they also reflect the relationship between
two communities. Despise, hatred, abhorrence, mockery and pity are
all different feelings between differently interacting communities and they are
actually not rooted in our food or our morals but somewhere else.
I have
rarely found a Hindu who has criticized Christians or South East Asians or even
cannibals who eat beef. There were a lot of funny stories circulated in English media about the food habits of Chinese around Beijing Olympics. The implication is that we express our
sentiments through our habits and the weird part is - our opinions are rarely
what we choose to have. They are already there.
We just present them when asked for (or sometimes without being asked
for).
This persistence, calibration of
standards and pre-existence of answers not only creates social roadblocks but
also hazards personal growth. If observed, one finds out most of the successful
people were once termed ‘freak, ‘weirdo’, ‘nerd’ etc. by their peers before they struck gold. Peer jealousy is
not the only answer to this intermittent tagging. Another look at them will
tell that they were just misfits within the calibrated range of values,
way-of-life, attitude and outlook of the majority around them. A person
grows up adjusting himself to suit his necessities and develops a unique course
of approach towards his state of affairs. Let us call him ‘A’. Automatically
his way is best according to him. So if somebody
‘B’ out of reason or chance is on a
different course of action then ‘A’ does not find him normal or even smart. And
since outputs are mostly in contrary as ‘B’ performs well where he was
expected to fail, in a call of self-justification ‘B’ is thought to be ‘over
smart’ and is suspected to fall soon. Worse still, since both of these people
are doing the best they think so it’s much unexpected that one would agree to
the other. Hence the tag- ‘arrogant’.
Some of these anomalies/freaks might fail in long run but most of their
critics are
caught in the unchanging web of mental stagnation and cease to grow,
refusing to accept the failure of their rational judgments. And unfortunately
they are always in mode of self justification and can never realize that there
may be something wrong with what they honestly think. In one perspective they
are not wrong, they are just not-right. Gradually they end of being a part of
crowd whose morals and opinions are just the reflection of society and nothing
of their own.
A virulent cocktail is concocted
when the dynamic agents of social changes like politics and religion modulate
the morals of society (as they have always been doing). They not only modulate
but virtually thrive on modulating the sentiments of people. Patriotism, one of
the most celebrated and pious of virtues is just an example of direct
interference of these agents. (Chauvinism is just an infamous younger brother).
Patriotism is loving one’s land within borders. And due to aforesaid reasons
it’s very convoluting to fathom that patriotism and regionalism (read
separatism) are two facets of the same coin. Patriotism is the vice of the virtuous and the virtue of the vicious. Patriotism is as vulnerable as any land’s borders.
It’s almost normal that in England-Pakistan match majority of Indians support
England and majority of Irish support Pakistan. This is how politics and morals create a
paradox: while manipulating love they actually sponsor hatred and obsession.
Religion is even bitter soup with
which morals are dished out. Historically religion has been the authority
over morals. Thus for a common man, most of his values and practices are decided
even before he can start thinking. Religion is decided with his birth and a mere coincidence like birth decides the whole thinking direction of a normal person. How Taliban toys with morals is a prominent
example. Annals of history are full of church’s atrocities while upholding the
imposed morals and combating heresy. Indians are still proud of sati tradition
while a moment of free thinking can make it look like stimulated suicide. As politics and religion go together, their illicit
relationship produces moral policing, minority segregation or appeasement and unjust
legislations e.g. No women ballot before
the onset of this century, curbs over artistic expression, talaqs in Muslim law etc. A recent example is the Mangalore attacks
on pub going women. Although behind the scenes there are a few who get
their megalomania or covetousness satisfied, a substantial mass supports this
and actively participate in it conscientiously. While they always think they
are rational and their steps are logical, they are actually a figment in the
hands of eccentric modulators who are tuning their inbuilt moral frequencies
for personal profits. A curious look tells us that we have problems
at even nuclear level due to such persistent morals induced by contemporary
society and religion. One flagrant example of such moral policing at family
level is what we know as “generation gap”.
A humanitarian consequence of
this social evolution of mental reactions is charity. Charity is fed by the
desire to become the person who actually practices what we believe in. One can
call it spiritual ambition. The values set as ideals by the society, get into
veins of people and gradually they become the ultimate ethereal purpose of our
existence. Nothing wrong about all this, but most of the charitable people or
institutions are offshoots of an aspiration for self-glorification or fear
infiltrated through religion. It sounds controversial but almost every charity is
selfish. Nonetheless, it still serves the humanity well.
As we resist our moral amendment,
we also can’t digest the same in others. It’s in our habit to assassinate
characters of people who don’t accord to our standards (a small fish chasing a
smaller one). If a person known to be immoral and wrong doing surprises the
self-christened judges with his sudden conscientious act, we don’t accept it fearing
the loss of an easy bully and sometimes due to sheer distrust. In a reflex
retaliation we tag him/her “hypocrite” while what he was doing was a deed of
accepting the morals we preach. This is one of the reasons why criminals have a
bad acceptance ratio and path of wrong seems like a labyrinth where the
entrance door has been shut. It is this double standard morality that creates
dissatisfaction and erosion in faith, which ultimately creates more anti
socials.
The intention of the arguments
here is not to murder the moral, stab values, spread agnosticism or justify
anti-socials.
Morals infuse social responsibility and they are the emblems of civilization.
Having confused morals is certainly far better than having none. The
intention is to reiterate an old saying in a new way. All that glitters is
not gold and all
that repulses is not always vitriolic. Leaders and litterateurs
should always doubt their opinions as they are the harbingers of future. The
answer to every moral question should not come through preliminary impulses and
opinionated verdicts; they should be analyzed from a detached view. Does not it
create a paradox like Russell’s (If a barber shaves all in the city who don’t
know how to shave, then who shaves the barber)? Who will question our brain as
brain does all the thinking and when shall we know that it is time to ask a
question? Moreover it sounds like a
recipe of self doubt and low confidence. I don’t know the fool-proof solution
but I know a practice which may enable us evade the predestined answers. It has two prerequisites: readiness for change and
promptness to act for it. For some time we need to put ourselves in
a situation we were born in…without any recognition of country, religion,
family, ambitions, hopes and desire. After creating this simulation we need to
try to find out the standalone morals which we think totally pure and not
vitiated due to any of the agents mentioned. For me they were
tolerance, liberty and equality (in order). For others they may be
different. Try to qualify the thoughts on these parameters. After a period
revisit the parameters and judge them.
Change the things if needed. All
these steps seem virtually abstract. But if you have just asked the question you have
already got more than half of the answer.
